Norm loved electronics, built our first hi-fi record
player from a Heath kit. Brought home
the first hand-held transistor radio my friends and I had ever seen. (We all agreed it’d be great to keep in a fallout shelter – people were actually building those in suburban back yards
in the 1950s.) Our
house was the first one with a VCR too.
And a generation before that, my father had the same
love for anything new. I remember when he brought home a box of something called Kleenex, "The handkerchief you can throw away!"
I was in the kitchen in the house in Malden
Those paper handkerchiefs were an exciting idea, but
we could see they were a wasteful two-ply.
How carefully we pulled that first one apart to make two out of it! Nor did another expensive box show up in our house for
many years. We used cotton handkerchiefs.
Whatever became of ladies’ handkerchiefs? They used to be quite an art form. And in an emergency you could get away with not ironing one, if you plastered it up to dry on the outside of the hot water tank that sat in the kitchen next to the cast-iron stove.
Whatever became of ladies’ handkerchiefs? They used to be quite an art form. And in an emergency you could get away with not ironing one, if you plastered it up to dry on the outside of the hot water tank that sat in the kitchen next to the cast-iron stove.
Well, I know what became of my grandmother's and my mother's handkerchiefs, because I inherited the entire combined stash (being the only grandchild/child who had an interest). I'm making a point of using them, to cut down on our use of that "something called Kleenex" for environmental reasons.
ReplyDeleteAnd since we didn't have a hot water tank in the kitchen, my mother taught me to press hankies by plastering them on the bathroom mirror. Worked fine and didn't even leave spots on the mirror.
I always used to use a window.
ReplyDelete